A FEDERAL JUDGE  and five other victims are dead and U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is reported in critical condition after a gunman went on a shooting rampage in a Safeway supermarket parking lot in Tucson, Arizona, Saturday, Jan. 8, where the Democratic congresswoman was holding an event for constituents. According to various news sources, witnesses say the gunman shot Rep. Giffords in the head with a handgun at point-blank range and then opened fire on others in the crowd, including Judge John Roll, a Republican.

The suspected gunman, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, is in federal custody and has been charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder, according to the Wall Street Journal.

"The suspected shooter has made death threats before and been contacted by law-enforcement officers, but the threats weren't against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords," said Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, according to a story in the Arizona Daily Star.

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The Star also cited a number of bizarre posts Loughner had made on Facebook, YouTube and MySpace accounts. Some of the comments appear to show a dissatisfaction with the government, but there is no coherence, and no specific grievances are articulated.

But some people were quick to politicize the tragedy by pointing fingers at the Tea Party, which backed Rep. Giffords' unsuccessful opponent in a narrow race in the November 2, 2010 election. The liberal British newspaper, the Guardian, for example, declared, "Shock turns to anger as mourners blame vitriolic rightwing rhetoric for creating climate of violence in US politics."

Chris McGreal, writing for the Guardian from Tucson, purported: "Paul Wellman laid his handwritten sign among the collection of candles, flowers and messages keeping vigil outside congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords's office. Then he stepped back and surveyed the scene. To the right, another sign said: 'Hate speech = murder.' But Wellman went further with his angry declaration in large black letters on white cardboard: 'Blame Palin. Blame the Tea Party.'

"The 60-something former miner did not wait to explain why," continued the Guardian article. "'They're trying to say that a lone nut was responsible for this, but Sarah Palin and the Tea Party might as well have put the gun in his hand. They are the ones who painted Giffords as some kind of traitor,' he said."

Although "some see the accused killer, Jared Loughner, as a deranged individual acting on his own," wrote McGreal in the Guardian article, "Giffords's father was among the first to point a finger elsewhere. As he rushed to his daughter's hospital bed, 75-year-old Spencer Giffords was asked if she had any enemies. He wept and replied: 'Yeah, the whole Tea Party.'"

Whether Paul Wellman and Spencer Giffords actually said those things or McGreal put words in their mouths, the implication that anyone connected with the Tea Party is responsible for the murders, and for the attempted murder of a United States Representative, is highly irresponsible and demonstrates a vitriol far more egregious than any this reader has ever heard from even the most outspoken of Tea Party patriots against their political opponents.

Yes, Tea Part patriots (among others) are outraged – and justifiably so – at the disregard for the United States Constitution that has been demonstrated by the Obama Administration and by many in the 111th Congress. Yes, they have said so in no uncertain terms, and they have called for the ouster of all elected officials whom they deem to have exceeded their constitutional authority. It is both their right and their duty as citizens and patriots to do so.

But the Tea Party movement has focused its efforts – and its rhetoric – on peaceful, lawful, constitutional means to achieve its objectives, by educating fellow Americans on the issues and by working (with considerable success to date, as the November 2, 2010, elections showed) to vote out of office those they feel have unjustifiably arrogated power to themselves beyond the limits granted by the Constitution.

For anyone to suggest, imply, or insinuate that the entire Tea Party movement is therefore responsible for a madman's rampage is as idiotic a notion as to accuse everyone who belongs to a public employees union, and has had issues with management, of "putting a gun into the hands of" a deranged and disgruntled postal worker who takes out his supervisor and a few co-workers after getting passed over for a promotion.

When news of the Tucson shootings hit the internet and the airwaves, several Tea Party groups were quick to condemn the act and express condolences and offer prayers for the victims and their families.

The Tucson Tea Party immediately posted on its website, also posted to the website of the Arizona Tea Party, the following statement: "We are incredibly saddened by the evil and atrocious violence that was inflicted on our community this morning. The shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and other innocent people is not to be condoned. Our prayers go out to Representative Giffords and all of the people who were injured or lost today. Our hope is that as a community we can heal and help those who were hurt by this terrible tragedy."

Under that post, some coward with the screen name "Kenneth," who opted not to make his profile available for public viewing on the Tucson Tea Party Website, entered the nauseatingly unconscionable comment, "Will the Tucson Tea Party publicly denounce Sarah Palin for the atrocious map that she gleefully published for all the world to see and the accompanying statements that she made about 'taking out' Congresswoman Giffords?" The map to which he referred was one targeting certain candidates for defeat in last November's election. But unprincipled operatives of the radical Left such as "Kenneth," whoever he really is, seem to take every opportunity to twist and distort the truth. Peter Wilson, in a Jan. 8 piece on American Thinker, observed that such people "They make a vile insinuation that Sarah Palin incited murder, but they don't have the courage to back up their charges with any explicit analysis."

As Jack Cahill wrote, also for American Thinker, on Jan. 9, "Before anyone had publicly identified the shooter of Arizona Congreswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the wire services were busily and shamelessly trying to establish a link between the violence and the Tea Party movement. The fact that Giffords is a Democrat and that the shooter, 22 year-old Jared Lee Loughner, is a white gun owner assures that they will continue to do so in spite of ample evidence to the contrary."

The South Florida Tea Party on Jan. 8, issued a statement for immediate release, stating that the members of that group and the Florida Tea Party Patriots "are shocked and horrified at the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords" and others in Tucson. "SFTP and FLTPP consider the shooting today as the actions of a madman," the statement said. "We as Americans must not tolerate" such "irrational and heinous acts."

Noting that there have been some threats of violence by certain individuals who falsely represented themselves as being part of the Tea Party movement, the release stated that the two Florida Tea Party Groups "condemn all violent rhetoric" and have "zero tolerance toward violence." The Tea Party has "consistently condemned statements and acts of violence" by extremists on either end of the political spectrum, the statement continued.

The release quoted Everett Wilkinson, Florida state coordinator for Tea Party Patriots and chairman of South Florida Tea Party as saying, "I am sick to my stomach that someone would shoot a Member of Congress and fellow citizens. Violence is intolerable, be it from the Left or Right."

Tea Party Patriots, a national umbrella group with more than 1,000 affiliated local Tea Party organizations around the country, posted at the top of its home page, the following statement: "Please pray for Congresswoman Giffords and the shooting victims and their families. Please also pray for the safety of Congressmen, Senators, President Obama and other elected officials in the aftermath of this shooting."

Perspicacity Press joins in those prayers, and we are confident that our readers will do the same. We also join with others in condemning the despicable acts of violence that were perpetrated by the shooter in Tucson. At the same time, we abhor insinuations that law-abiding, freedom-loving Americans in the Tea Party movement, who are working to defend the Constitution by exercising their God-given and constitutionally protected rights to speak their minds and to vote their consciences, are in any way responsible for the arrant, aberrant and contemptible atrocities committed by him.

Source: www.PerspicacityPress.com. Copyright © 2011 Rand Green Communications.
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